Leadership Style and Behavior
Leadership has always been a favorite topic of interest for business and human behavior practitioners. As such, concepts and theories in leadership emerged as a result of vast amounts of studies, observations, affirmations, and best practices in this specific field of endeavor. From the five assessments that I took which aimed to determine my leadership style and behavior, the results revealed that my leadership style is employee-centered, as opposed to task-centered. This means that I am cognizant of the need to serve the best interests of the employees – which are crucial in motivating and influencing them towards goal accomplishment. Likewise, the results also indicated me possessing a Theory Y attitude, as well as a very ethical behavior. The current discourse hereby aims to present a reflective and insightful observation of oneself which would confirm the results in real life settings and situations.
1. Theory Y Attitude
According to Douglas MacGregor, the social psychologist who espoused the Theory X and Theory Y on human motivation, Theory Y “expounds a participative style of management that is de-centralized. It assumes that employees are happy to work, are self-motivated and creative, and enjoy working with greater responsibility” . By assuming a Theory Y attitude, the tests have affirmed that I believe that employees in the work setting are predominantly optimistic and have undertaken their respective roles in the organization for the reason that they love what they are doing. Just like me, I believe I pursue work according to things and endeavors that interest me. As such, there are inner drives that motivate me to work and providing me with opportunities to be responsible and to assume roles of accountability make me motivated to undertake delegated tasks. Likewise, providing me with the chance to undertake challenging activities also enable me to look forward to promotion privileges and assuming leadership roles. As learned, “effective leadership is pertinent in predicting employee attitude, performance and motivation and that without such leadership it would prove futile” . Therefore, learning about the factors that lead subordinates to behave in a certain manner, through undertaking of leadership assessment tests would help leaders and managers design appropriate strategies that would influence followers into the achievement of explicitly defined goals .
2. Ethical Behavior
3. Big Five Personality
For the Big Five Personality profile, I scored high in openness to experience,
conscientiousness, adjustment, urgency and agreeableness. The results are indicative of high potentials for interacting and leading due to the open-mindedness to listen and enhance one’s knowledge on the experiences of others, which are essential characteristics of an effective leader.
4. Managerial Leadership Skills
As for leadership skills, all three technical skills, interpersonal skills and decision-making skills are equal; meaning, I possess the essential skills which would definitely make me an effective leader .
Personal Reflection on the Results of the Assessments
I agree with the results of the assessments since I really manifest the attitudes and behavior that were disclosed therein. In retrospect, I affirm that I am a an optimistic person and as such, I see the good things in what I do and in what other people do or in rationalizing how and why did they behave that way. As such, consistent with MacGregor’s Theory Y, I assert that people work with the objective of earning a living; and at the same time, undertaking endeavors that are sefl-fulfilling and motivating. Otherwise, people would be disssatisfied and would keep on searching for other avenues or work opportunities until their personal and professional goals are achieved. Moreover, in the process of one’s review of the self-assessment results, in conjunction with lessons learned from the textbook, I believe that leaders should be able to accurately assess the personalities of their subordinates as well as the needs of the situation in order to apply a leaderships style that is deemed to be effective . As such, the emergence of the integrative leadership theory, which posits that “integrative leadership theories attempt to combine the trait, behavioral, and contingency theories to explain successful, influencing leader–follower relationships” has been recognized to be relevant in explaining the need to be flexible to be effective.
Concurrently, from the lessons learned about ethical behavior, I found out that the
adjectives that aptly describe what an ethical behavior comprises are as follows: dignity, diversity, equity, fairness, honesty, respect, and rights . The authors define ethical behavior as follows: “characterized by honesty, fairness and equity in interpersonal, professional and academic relationships and in research and scholarly activities. Ethical behaviour respects the dignity, diversity and rights of individuals and groups of people” . From the definition, and one’s personal affirmation of what ethical behavior is comprised of, I acknowledged that there are similarities in observing the inclusion of the values of honest and respect. As such, the integration of values of respecting the diversity and rights of other people are also recognized to be of paramount importance when one defines and observes adherence to ethical behavior. The observation is especially true in contemporary times, especially since work, academic, and other social settings have exhibited the presence of diversity in culture. As such, a leader who is able to manage and support diversity, as essential leadership skills, should manifest cultural awareness and adeptness to respond and react to the needs of assuming an ethical behavior in various facets of life.
What do you need to change, learn, or do to become a better leader?
1. Necessary Changes
2. What should be Learned?
3. Actions that need to be Undertaken
The actions that need to be undertaken to become a better leader should therefore start from the realization and acknowledgement that learning is a continuous process. This means that regardless of the amount of knowledge and skills gained in present times, I still need to be cognizant of the fact that there are more things to learn. I can continue learning by reading current and future leadership trends, especially lessons learned from best practices observed in contemporary organizational settings. In addition, there are a wealth of good reading materials from leadership journals and publications. As such, I could learn more about leadership concepts, paradigm, and how these frameworks are applied in real life organizational contexts. Moreover, aside from being kept apprised, I would love to undergo leadership training and development through workshops, seminars, and enrolling in course modules where learning objectives focus on leadership.
Conclusion
The current discourse has affirmed successful achievement of the objective of presenting a reflective and insightful observation of oneself to confirm the leadership self-assessment results in real life settings and situations. After affirming possessing Theory Y attitude with a very ethical behavior, high in openness to experience, conscientiousness, adjustment, urgency and agreeableness, as well as possessing the three (3) essential skills to make me an effective leader (technical, interpersonal, and decision-making skills), in conjunction with being an employee-centered leader, I realized that these are strengths which would assist in addressing challenges in future work settings. Further, my personal reflection on the results of the assessment confirm that the self-assessment examinations captured the best of my skills, style, attitude and behavior as I deal with others and as I perceive as well as exemplify leadership characteristics. However, I also acknowledge that there is still more to learn, actions to undertake, and changes to be made on the road to becoming a better and more effective leader. I should be proactive and more vigilant in embracing new insights regarding the evolving conceptual framework on leadership way into the future.
References
Banks, S., Egan, D., Duplisea, J., & Mensah, L. (n.d.). Definition of Ethical Behavior. Retrieved from dal.ca: https://www.dal.ca/content/dam/%20Ethics/EthicalBehaviour.pdf
Kelloway, K., Weigand, H., McKee, C., & Das, H. (2013). Positive Leadership and Employee Well-Being. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, Vol. 20, p. 107.
Luisser, R., & Achua, C. (2013). Leadership: Theory, Application, & Skill Development. Mason, OH: South-Western, Cengage Learning.
Mind Tool Editorial Team. (2016). Theory X and Theory Y. Retrieved from Mind Tools: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_74.htm
Nelson, D., & Quick, J. (2008). Understanding Organizational Behavior. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.
Northhouse, P. G. (2010). Leadership: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Schmidt, C. T. (2008). ETHICAL DECISION MAKING AND MORAL BEHAVIOR. Retrieved from The University of Rhode Island: http://www.uri.edu/research/lrc/scholl/webnotes/Ethics.htm
